Monday, August 22, 2011

Post-Race TV Wrap: Sprint Cup Series From MIS on ESPN

Rain was a worry, but luckily the weather stayed good and the ESPN coverage of the Sprint Cup Series race from MIS went off without a hitch.

Nicole Briscoe hosted the coverage from the Infield Pit Studio. Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty were the analysts who joined her. ESPN college football analyst Desmond Howard stopped by after giving the command to start engines. The college football talk was interrupted by racing.

Allen Bestwick, Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree handled the race from the TV booth. This was an MIS script that all three of them knew very well. Bestwick did his best to concentrate on keeping viewers up to date on who was where and why.

Jarrett and Petree were again saddled with a fuel mileage and track position event without major incidents except for engine woes. Both of them understood the issues and talked clearly about what teams could make what decisions to keep themselves in contention. You just had the feeling for them it was a long day.

Speaking of long days, the ESPN pit road reporters were struggling for some reason. It's a big track and there were several caution periods that made for group stops, but it was still a rough race. The booth dominated the commentary and there were almost no crew chief interviews, unlike the last race.

Tim Brewer has now been upstaged in the pre-race show by ESPN's own Sports Science features that have now been adapted to NASCAR. This really steals Brewer's thunder and makes his subsequent reports seem rather basic.

ESPN made good pictures and sound. The director crept back toward his tendency to frame camera shots tight and lose the larger perspective. On a big track like MIS, that was tough. ESPN has a good split-screen effect, but it was rarely used for green flag racing.

In the end, NASCAR may have been guilty of providing some early cautions for minor debris and was rewarded with a late caution that bunched the field for the finish. It was a storyline that TV viewers had seen before.

Once again, ESPN framed the finish so the lead lap cars could be seen crossing the line as the graphics revealed the finishing order. It wasn't perfect, but at least the cars could be seen. Kind of a fitting way to end a rather mediocre telecast.

This post will serve to host your comments on the ESPN coverage of the Sprint Cup Series race from MIS. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below.

As a current resident of Fontana, I know all too painfully well how racing goes on this style of track. ESPN did not often have a lot to work with as far as on-track excitement goes until the inevitable late cautions. However, the director could have done much better with the tools at his disposal to make this dog of a race a little more bearable to watch. Instead, what we saw in pictures was often the same old same old. As I said in my one live blog comment, only Bestwick's addition to the announcing crew and the overall improvement in the performance of the whole booth made this day tolerable.

Mr Editor -First time all season I've listened to the ESPN broadcast ...AB did his best with commentary for a tough race to call; DJ and AP contributed well ...shots were ok, but MIS lends itself to aerial shots, but rarely seen ...finish line coverage again improved ...using a clown car as pace care kinda appropo for MIS ...Nicole raised her game, but Rusty and Brad proved their uselessness as analysts ...like the idea of Brad doing pre-race walk/interviews on pit road ...serial shots during post-race just doesn't get it or justify expense.Walter

To me, Nicole was a bright spot in an otherwise drab and forgettable broadcast. The Brad and Rusty show was its usual disaster but the rest of the broadcast team seemed to have an off day. They all seemed to be mailing it in.

What is with the obsession with the pace car? No it was a Camaro, or Mustang, Corvette, or Camry. It was a prototype model using the Chevy Volt technology. I don't think it had any relevance to the race. What would've been nice if ESPN would've found out what happened to Kenseth on the last last restart. Restarted 4th and finish 10th. Bad reporting as usual.

mediocre sums it up for me, too. ESPN actually showed us the cars crossing the finish line but the rest of the time used tight shots on a huge track. Yeah we know they get spread out and yes IMO nascar manipulated the cautions to try and keep it somewhat interesting. thunderstorm meant I was in the house so I watched most of the race while doing housework.

Although I am not a Kenseth fan, it would have been good to know what happened to him on the restart.

Also I give credit to Tony for an honest comment about his spot in the chase and I'm not being sarcastic at all. That's another problem with the chase. When it was just race darn it, you had comers and goers all through the top 10, now the top 12 is locked and that's dumb.

I think ESPN has made racing unwatchable. The NNS race in Montreal is a good example of too many graphics and too much talking. The split screens, graphic boxes and the stupid tickers at the top and bottom of the screen make it virtually impossible to even see the cars. Whoever thought up the bubbles with arrows pointing to the car should be flogged(Thanks Fox! NOT)Please do away with the pit reporter. The commentary from the pits is useless and unneeded. Just show the pit stop and let the guys in the booth comment instead.Take a cue from the BBC coverage of F1. They assume you have a brain and keep the graphics to a minimum.

After teasing us with 3 fine telecasts we get tight shots and the clueless twins. Jamie Little needs to go she does not ask a good question to the drivers. Send Jamie and Rusty to a Dale Carnegie course.

Allen did his best like he always does. The shots have to be widened as far as it can be. Wide shots shows us the race.

I'm not gonna watch for a while I enjoyed these last two races but I knew it was a bait and switch.

I can only echo what others have said so far. Too many tight shots; as though they are trying to hide empty seats. Tim Brewer has become persona non gratis, and Rusty and Brad, as a long time Rusty fan, Im dissapointed in how badly he has done since leaving the car. His shameless denial of his son's ability to keep other teams bodymen employed is a letdown. I will commend the AB,DJ,andAP for doing the best they can. All of you that were so glad ESPN was taking oer, still feel that way?

Ho hum race, Ho hum broadcast. Brewer was useless. All I heard from Rusty and Brad was mindless drivel. Nicole would be shining if she had real analysts in the studio with her. Pit work was shotty. The reporters need to start thinking about what their saying before they say it.

Booth was off. They didnt do a good job of keeping the tempo up. They were just as bored as we were. DJ came out of the box like he was on 5 Hour Energy. He was shouting and talking really fast and talking all the time. But by the end he was calm and Andy was doing the talking.

Lack of split screen is astounding. How many times have I said split screen replays for green flag racing? Yet they still wont listen. They were all over the place at the end covering battles everywhere but no split screen. Really hard to follow.

Felt like the ESPN of old. Pretty bad weekend for ESPN. But this is the last split weekend between Cup and "The NNS Series" as Larry Mac says. No ESPN for me next week, Ill be at the track. Looking forward to Wednesday night though. An ESPN free week, whats any better than that?

Michigan is a very boring race to watch, has been since I've started watching racing. However, I give credit for ESPN working with what they have. If there's no excitement out there, you can't show it. Im still enjoying the chemistry between the onair talent, and all in all, they did a pretty good job.

I give Nicole Brisco high marks for keepin a tight reain on the babble and cheerleading from Rusty and Brad. She even inperrupted the football talk to get back to the race...and I'm a huge U of M fan! AB and the booth did pretty well, but it's hard to get much excitement going at a track like MIS where cars spread all over the track 2 laps after a restart. Unfortunately, the truck gave us way too many tight shots, and spent a lot of camera time on the leader running all by his lonesome. That really isn't an attention getter, guys. But, it's Michigan, and that's how it goes.

With the cars strung out around the track within a few laps after every restart, why did't ESPN do just one "through the field" so each car could get some air time? All that was talked about were the top 12 cars in points and a couple of "on the bubble" cars. Heck the only comprehensive pit reporting was done on the Hendrick cars early on in the race and Jamie Little couldn't even get that right and reported on Biffle's car all the while the camera is focused on J. Gordon's car. On the only "up to speed" segment, the pit reporters covered just the cars running from 1st to 9th position. It seems to be a hit or miss proposition when it comes to using pit reporters. I don't understand the logic behind it (and maybe there isn't any).

Minor issue. Whoever the ESPN person was who was monitoring radio scanner traffic failed to tell Dale Jarrett that Matt Kenseth's team told Matt to back up to Jeff Gordon so the 24 car could get some trash off the grill. That tidbit of info would have prevented Jarrett from bumbling around for words to explain what we were seeing on the track which was not the norm for two cars that are not teammates.

And it was Harvick who punted Ambrose in his pit stall right before the green-white-checker finish.

And yes, at the very end of the broadcast I heard Rusty say "our Carl Edwards is looking very, very strong". Doesn't that statement reek of nepotism? Are ESPN's ethical standards so low that management chooses to overlook the fact that on-air personalities not only own teams and have family members drive the cars but they can also voice their favoritism towards a particular driver. IMO, ESPN has no credibility whatsoever reporting on the sport of NASCAR.

On a positive note, thank goodness for Alan Bestwick in the booth.

P.S. In the 2-hour replay of the 3-1/2 hour Nationwide Montreal race last night, although a good 30laps in the middle of the race was cut out of the broadcast due to time constraints, ESPN did manage to squeeze in Tim Brewer's segment. That only reaffirms where live racing fits into ESPN's priorities in a Nascar broadcast.

Nicole did a good job of pointedly reminding the studio crew was a race in progress, and that they weren't there to discuss the college ball pre-season. FYI, when a non-racing celebrity is in the studio or booth, you ask him what he thinks of the race; you don't switch over to his or her sport. I'm looking at you, Brad.

Anonymous @ 7:43 and Gina, it was Harvick who spun Ambrose. The in-car camera clearly showed the 'Jimmy John's' logo of the #29 car. You may have seen the 'JJ' logo and mistaken it for Jimmie Johnson's initials.

MortonGroveDon, since you asked, yes I'm still glad ESPN has taken over. I'm far less annoyed with them than FOX. Doesn't mean they're perfect, far from it, but what these networks are dealing with is applying lipstick to a pig. The racing is boring til the last 20 laps. Action on restarts but then the field strings out and drivers start conserving fuel. Pretty hard to make that compelling. But they could get rid of Rusty, Brad and Brewer to at least rid the annoyance factor.

One issue I have with ESPN is that they squash the picture vertically to accommodate the graphics at the top of the screen, distorting the shapes of the cars. It makes the picture look really ugly. It's exacerbated by the graphics being bigger than needed with lap counter stacked on top of the positions strip, and even worse yet by the two logos, which are strictly advertising and not information, being taller than the lap and leader information. It's just really sloppy technology.

How many times are they going to have Brewer explain the old turn fan off and watch paper fall of the front grill trick? Man I think we have seen this like 3 or 4 times this season....geesh let Brewer go home and watch the race on TV..same for Rusty and Brad...I do not even watch the pre-race anymore...it just pisses me off

Cut the cable a few weeks back, and went to TrackPass. I got to watch I pretty decent race. When it was boring up front, I moved back in the field and saw good battles for position. Radio broadcast was pretty decent too. Sounds like I'm not missing much on the "4-letter."

They ran the ticker at the top all day yesterday but they didn't show the interval. The interval should be shown at all times when the ticker is on the screen. Since they don't show many of the cars, it would give us some perspective as to where the cars are in relation to the leader.

The less is better, seems to have made no impact on ESPN. MIS is known to be a strung out boring race track, difficult to keep viewers focused. ESPN reverted back to its poor choice of pictures and left the on air talent with little to keep the fans attention. We are starting to see the 2011 Chase propaganda, after years of hearing about the constant hammering from the fans about the "playoffs", another decision ESPN continues to make. NASCAR is allowing the networks to run free as to how they broadcast its product. The stands are empty and the ratings have got to be lower than expected, the sales of merchandise continues to be less than projected and when the NFL starts it will only get worse. The change of AB in the booth was a great step but in view of this weeks telecast, it appears to be a bandaid on a severed limb. The choice of retired former NASCAR notables, with little or no talent for television, bringing their own adgendas and conflicts continue to infect the weekly series. Where ESPN had an opportunity to turn the tide with this seasons series, it appears it has decided to use the same old tired approach that lazy production and poor pictures work great if the on air talent is cute. The fact that when new faces like Mr Craven and AB are introduced to the public, the old faces look lame and can not keep pace with the on track action if it is not scripted. All in all, the mess from Saturday continued on Sunday.

At least we weren't forced to hear any Waltrip drivel. Brad and Rusty do not belong, period. Somebody please tell Little and Welch to find ways to ask their questions in a shorter more concise manner. They take forever to ask simple questions.

@Palmetto,Alan Bestwick stated the pit reporters were going to report on the Hendrick cars which at the time were were running in 2nd (Martin), 5th (Gordon), 7th (JJ)and 12th (Jr). Dr. Punch reported on Martin, Jamie reported on Biffle(instead of Gordon), Dr. Punch reported on JJ, and Dave Burns reported on Jr. I certainly don't know who was at fault but the goof didn't make Jamie appear to be on top of her game.

The debacle of reporting on the Hendrick cars, then Jaime Little reporting on Biffle made Jaime look really bad in my opinion. Maybe she was told something different by the producer in her ear but when she made it point to announce "it's Greg Biffle I'm talking about". It made her come across as snobbish, and insubordinate to the message that was trying to be conveyed. It had the attitude of "I'm going to report on who I want to report on and you're not telling me any different" Unprofessional.